Palestinians boycotted, heterosexuals banned, it might suck but don’t reach for a straw
The last straw! Cleve Wootson, The Washington Post, July 1:
In one fell sip, Seattle on Sunday became the first major U.S. city to ban drinking straws … Failure to comply may result in a $250 fine … consumers … have been putting pressure on companies to do away with plastic straws … a petition on Change.org … (said) “Imagine a world where we could stop consuming 500 million straws a day, just in America!”
The last 500 million straws? Adam Minter, Bloomberg.com, June 8:
Activists and news media often claim that Americans use 500 million plastic straws per day … which sounds awful. But the source of this figure turns out to be a survey conducted by a nine-year-old. Similarly, two Australian scientists estimate that there are up to 8.3 billion plastic straws scattered on global coastlines. Yet even if all those straws were suddenly washed into the sea, they’d account for about .03 per cent of the … plastics estimated to enter the oceans in a … year. In other words, skipping a plastic straw in your next Bahama Mama may feel conscientious, but it won’t make a dent in the garbage patch.
Listen to Palestinians! Boycott! Nick Riemer, senior lecturer, faculty of arts and social science, Sydney University, newmatilda.com, May 15:
Today is Nakba (“catastrophe”) Day, when Palestinians commemorate the cataclysm of their expulsion from their homes in 1948. The most important voices to hear today are theirs … anyone who really cares about peace in Palestine-Israel should embrace … the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign … In Australia, BDS efforts have recently been scaled up. Following a large BDS conference at Sydney University last year, the first Australian national BDS committee … is busy working on campaigns. Boycott activities are not new … At Sydney University, Jake Lynch … (instituted an) academic boycott in 2014. Last year, BDS activists successfully campaigned for the Royal Flying Doctor service to pull out of a multi-million-dollar contract with the Israeli … (firm) who were going to supply … a flight simulator. This year, (40) academics at Sydney University (and 20 from Wollongong University) … pledged to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions … and efforts are under way on other campuses.
Guess who hates boycotts? Yaakov Schwartz, The Times of Israel, June 29:
Shady Srour does not like being called an “Israeli Arab”. “I am Palestinian. I was born in Israel. The term ‘Israeli Arab’ detaches me from my own identity and … (my family) who live in Ramallah,” Srour (said) … So it could be considered ironic that … Srour was targeted by the UK branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for allowing the Israeli festival to screen his 2017 film “Holy Air” … “This whole BDS situation … (is) about politics, and I hate it because … I want to make films. If I wanted to go into politics, I would have been in the Knesset or somewhere else. I love film, I love art, and I have many things to speak about — and the problem is that wherever I go … they start to talk about politics” (he said).
Guess who’s not coming to dinner? Luke Mintz, telegraph.co.uk, June 30:
Sheffield University says it will open a set of LGBT-only student flats in September to provide a “safe space for students to be themselves” … (the plan) has been criticised … as a form of “segregation” … a number of student housing blocks in Manchester, London, and Liverpool (are) becoming known informally as “Chinese-only” … Sheffield’s plan will go even further by enacting an explicit ban on heterosexual students.